Okay so the finale rocked! Just a note: Italics refers to the dream/vision. So there ya go...


Chapter 11


Sam slammed his fist into the coffee table, the impact sending a loud thud throughout the cramped room and a flutter of paper to the coarse carpeted floor. Usually, he wouldn't refer to himself as a violent person. Rarely did Sam ever have the urge to beat a man to a bloody pulp or bash his fist into a wall, and normally, even if the thought occurred to him, he would simply ignore it and do his best to internalize the situation without anyone coming to bodily harm, including himself. But this was different.

This was spending the past ten hours pouring over what your older brother misguidedly referred to as research when in reality itwas a mass of pages, scribbles, and websites that seemed to have no direct ties to the current events. Sure there was a sketch of the symbol adorning random pages every now and then, but Sam already knew what that looked like. The damned thingwas emblazed on his chest.

Sam pushed the rest of the scattered pages towards the other side of the table, and leaned back into the chair, doing his best to distance and disassociate from the wreckage that was Dean's organization and thought process, a process that seemed to hold the key according to his sleeping brother.

He let out a sigh, and brought his hands to his temples, massaging the bone slowly. Sam wasn't sure what bothered him more—his guilt or frustration. As far back as he could remember, he'd always struggled to grasp Dean's train of thought and how his brother could just look and know, see connections where he can't, and latch onto facts thatSam considered completely random and inconsequential. Of one thing Sam was certain, and that was his brother is the only person on the planet that makes his acceptance and excel at Stanford look like he went to the University of Backwoods, USA.

On the other hand, his brother's twisted sense of organizing material, which he realized must be genetic, isn't the problem. Rather, the problem is he doesn't know how to decipher it and the one person who can is now out cold, and has been since yesterday mid-afternoon. The blame of which can be placed on no one but himself, because no matter how much he wants to forget the action. He bought the pills, and he gave them to Dean effectively screwing himself.

He was beginning to wonder though if it was the pills making Dean sleep or the sickness that was holding him there. After about the first five hours, Sam had tried to wake Dean up to check on him because as far as he could tell, the elder hadn't moved an inch the entire time. Desperation throughout his venture into Dean's steel trap of a mind made him more anxious to rouse his brother, but Dean didn't even flinch at his intermittent touch, tap, or shake.

Sam lifted himself out of the chair, and began stretching out the kinks in his neck and shoulders, cringing at the creaking and occasion pop his stiff bones would give. His mouth opened in a silent scream when he crossed his left arm over his chest to stretch out the muscles and the movement jarred the raw skin clinging to his Tee.

The younger dropped his arms back to his side and slowly slumped down to the floor, resting up against the chipped wall. With all his worrying about concealing the whole ordeal from Dean and then dealing with his brother's illness, somehow Sam was convinced he'd lessened the pain in someway. Or at the very least whoever or whatever was controlling this thing was ignoring him in way, although that didn't seem logical because of the whole bathroom thing. Something that horrified Dean and he couldn't even remember, not in the slightest.

But now it hurt. Bad. The throbbing was back, it had started rather dull, but now the pulse of it was steady and growing painful by the second. Sam writhed against it, shifting to find a position where the agony would lessen or dissipate completely. It wasn't to be found, and he resorted to curling up into himself, trying desperately to breathe through the fire stemming from his chest that was working its heated course throughout his entire being. Darkness clouded his eyes, and he fought its hold fiercely until his body could no longer resist the pain and slowly succumbed to the black. Sam drifted into the realm of the unconscious, Dean's name on his lips.

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Crumbling walls surround him, each brick falling revealing pieces of an old hidden world behind it. A dull indistinguishable roar reaches his ears growing to deafening levels before the incoherent phrases morph into meaningful words.

The words are carried upon the harsh wind that rushes past him. Its wafting brush against his skin sharper than knives as it pierces his body and forges through every piece of him. He opens his mouth to scream against the agony but a hand, skeletal and clothed in remnant shards of black-tinged skin covers his mouth and steals the breath from his lungs.

His eyes widen in panic as his body is turned to watch the last remainder of the wall breaks free and expose the crimson red altar behind. Sulfurous breath fills his senses as the voice of the one who holds him speechless resounds throughout the hallowed place lingering therein and stealing away all logic and reason within it's threshold. The message of the wizened takes hold of him, a steady mantra repeated until he accepts it.

He takes his place upon the altar without a fight for he hears the words spoken and knows them to be true. His eyes fall to the oozing black from his chest and the hooded aged figures that surround but their presence brings no fear, but allegiance and honor for they have chosen him.

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Dean groaned at the flickers of sunlight that danced on his closed eyelids. His head pulsated mercilessly and his mouth held the ever-the-favorite taste of dried cotton. He peeled his eyes open slowly, grimacing at the shimmering beams of light. He tried to shift his body into a semi-upright position, but found that none of his limbs seemed to really want to cooperate and in fact, appeared to be under the impression that some heavy weight lay on top of them and they simply weren't able to.

So he waited, something he wasn't prone to do naturally, but the stillness of the room was cohesive to such a state. As the minutes ticked by, he found that the some parts of the body took longer to wake up than others. A revelation, he decided, he'd had to inform Sam about.

Once he felt that everything was ready to function like they were supposed to, Dean shifted over onto his side and pushed himself up. His chin fell to rest on his chest because apparently the head takes longest to wake up from such a state of heaviness. Upon reaching the desired position, he lolled his head back to the headboard and waited for his eyes clear.

Dean knew when they did, because a straggled gasp escaped him when he saw Sam sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. His brown orbs shone with emotions that could be dubbed as mischievous and calculating as they scanned him.

The elder didn't return the sentiment in the least. His expression held an emotion more in the range of "pissed off". Dean's brain was moving a little slower than normal but he was able to come to the conclusion that the sun wasn't shining when he'd dozed off, last he could remember, and by the way Sam looked, the little sneak had had something to do with it.

"How long?" Dean rasped groggily, his hazel eyes piercing.

"17 hours." Sam offered, a smug grin plastered on his face, and didn't even flinch when Dean intensified his stare and started to lean towards him.

"What did you do?" The question reeked of accusation as Dean thought it should be and he felt his blood pressure raise a couple notches when Sam did nothing but shrug.

"Not my fault you're sick. You should've rested." It wasn't "motherly" in anyway. In fact the statement was almost cold and sent a shiver through Dean as he watched his brother slowly rise and grab his jacket off the opposite bed.

"And where do you think you're going?" Dean pressed, cocking his eyebrows in suspicion.

"To see Father Andrew." Sam replied lightly, as if the impending meeting meant nothing, and clutched the Impala's keys in his hand.

"Like hell you are!" Dean yelled, grunting as he worked his way off the bed and stood up.

"Language, Dean." Sam reprimanded and Dean's mouth dropped open in shock.

"What's the matter with you?" Dean grabbed Sam's arm tightly and jerked, forcing his younger brother to face him.

"Let me go." Sam ordered through clenched teeth. His former cheery persona shifting into an ominous one.

"No." Dean stated firmly, gripping Sam's arm a little harder.

"Ok."

"Huh?"

"I said okay." Sam complied, sinking down on the bed and looking up at Dean's puzzled face with an almost thrilled smirk as though he had been trying to get Dean into such a state.

"Alright, spill. What happened while I was out?" Dean questioned, trying to get his tired mind to work out what the hell was going on. "Did something get to you?"

"Why would you say that?" Sam asked innocently, a baffled grin plastered on his face effectively hiding the frantically spinning wheels in his brain.

"Are you kidding me?" Dean exasperated, wiping a hand over his face. "You—uh…dude, you're not yourself, let's just put it that way."

"How so?" Sam cocked his head to the side and donned a look of earnestness upon asking the question. He needed to know.

"Uh…Well, you're moody. But never like this. And last time I was conscious, something I still think you had a hand in by the way, you were all hovering and worried. Now you're all…you're all too happy for the Sammy I know, let's just put it that way."

"I see." Sam stated coolly

"What did you say?" Dean asked slowly, the phrase was not something Sam would use on most occasions but his tone was eerily familiar. "How's your chest?"

"Why?" Sam retorted, irritation seeping into his voice.

"Let me see it." Dean pressed, stepping towards his brother, his expression demanding "no-nonsense".

"No!" Sam screamed and started to move away, but then almost as suddenly he stilled and proceededin taking off his shirt and exposing the clear and completed mark adorning his chest.

"God, Sam." Dean breathed, his attention captivated by the mark for a minute before shifting back to his brother. "You're not going anywhere near that church."

"You gonna stop me?" Sam taunted, standing up to full height, looking down at Dean.

"That a threat?" Dean shot back, mimicking Sam's stance the best he could.

"No." Sam smirked, taking a step back, a new plan formed, "But you should go, I mean. Father Andrew is expecting me."

"Fine." Dean shook his head, and coughed a couple of times before grabbing his clothes and heading off to the bathroom. "You stay here. You got me?"

"Yes, I got you." Sam replied lightly, watching as his brother retreated into the bathroom, shutting the door with a click.

"You still want me to wait? What if he tries to stop us? He won't be able to, right, Father?" Sam asked the empty air, listening for the answer that lingered within his head, the voice not his own.

"The appointed time." Sam repeated, smiling widely, and waited for reassurance from his last few troubling questions.

"I didn't think so."

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alright lemme know what you think, and i apologize for taking so long. Thanx to HT and carocali for your help!